Making me cRaZy.

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Making me cRaZy

Sometimes self portraiture can be a wonderful way to redirect my negative feelings into creativity, and in the process, help disolve them. I took the above photo last week after a very stressful day where nothing seemed to be going right. It was very therapeutic to make faces at the camera, trying to convey what I’d been going through all day. I had to laugh at myself for getting so worked up. In the end I felt much better AND I created a diptych matching my funny expression with the tiny part that had been a source of much of my frustration.

Travis sent me this and for awhile now I’ve been meaning to post a link to the work of Chema Madoz. He does beautiful set ups of objects in clever and playful ways, all shot in black & white. There is a good selection of his photos on haha.nu that I’d recommend checking out first.

Putting my show together is not going as smoothly as I’d hoped. It makes me very glad I still have plenty of time left to prepare, and also that the original date I am slated for may be pushed back. I think in the meantime I need to look for other, less involved opportunities to submit my work for exhibition. For my own sense of satisfaction I need more than just this one show – even though it’s a solo – to have on my plate this year. Maybe I am crazy to think so…

Mandy has red stockings

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Mandy has red stockings

Creativity has really taken a backseat to other, more pressing things this week. If only the weather would improve and provide better outdoor lighting conditions then I could get out and finish rolls of film I have loaded into three different cameras. I can hear them calling my name, making me feel guilty…

The NV wrap up

The sky appears to speed on by
The above photo was taken in Gastown, Vancouver, with a Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim toy camera.

I’m really glad Zak invited me to work with Foo Associates at Northern Voice this past weekend. I don’t think I would’ve attended otherwise because my experience last year didn’t leave me “wanting more”. I would’ve missed out on a lot if I hadn’t been there.

I felt last year was great socially, and interesting because I was “thrown” last minute onto a panel, but lacking in the kind of content I’d actually paid for. This year was still very social, but because of my role as “Foo Associates representative”, brought me into contact with many new and interesting people instead of just chatting with friends. I was definately more interested in this year’s speakers, and made a point of not opening my laptop and (mostly not) shooting my camera during sessions to divert my attention. An open laptop in the audience usually seems to mean surfing/chatting/photo editing is going on, and I didn’t want to fall into it this year like so many others I observed.

Zak and I led a morning session on the first day called “Photo-Blogosphere-Meatspace-Mashup.”
The idea was to document different information related to blogging, such as the year people started blogging, number of blogs kept, and so on. We threw out some ideas, as did the audience, and then found a spot to create human graphs using the twenty or so participants. The results were fun, and though we hoped to explore this further during the conference, weather and space issues were against us. It’s an idea I’d like to try again, if I can figure out a good way to bring together interested bloggers.

I never did get further on the second day with my diptych series of conference attendees and their equipment, as mentioned in my previous blog entry. But again, I definately want to explore this further, now that I have a better idea of what works well and how best to shoot it.

All in all Northern Voice was a great source of inspiration, knowledge and social interaction.

People and their things

Jess Marshall Ivan prefers paper Luke Closs

This weekend I’m attending Vancouver’s blogging conference, Northern Voice, and photographing the event on behalf of Foo Associates.

One of the projects I decided to work on during yesterday’s Moosecamp, was taking portraits of the attendees, photographing their equipment in a separate frame and then combining these two shots later into a diptych. The full set of the series so far can be found in the Foo Associates photo stream on Flickr. I’m hoping to do more of this today, depending on whether the conference schedule allows.

It seems a bit wrong to be posting snowy photos on my blog when Vancouver is showing those lovely spring heralds the cherry blossom and crocus, but it’s still snowy somewhere….

I keep meaning to link to a new photography blog Pierre told me about called Muse-ings. I really love a lot of the work Tim Atherton has chosen to feature on his blog.

Bottle collection

Old bottle collection

On Friday afternoon I went to see an art installation at Centre A by artist Germaine Koh. The show, called Overflow, was a site specific display of hundreds of glass bottles deemed as unusable and reclaimed from local recycling depot, United We Can. I was glad to have made it to the show before it closed this weekend. It was an impressive display and definately interesting to photograph. It was also a very telling installation about many aspects of Vancouver life, and the role recyclables play in the survival of the city’s homeless population.

Reaching up and away

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Reaching up and away

I have trees on the brain lately. They have dominated my photographic subject matter since before Christmas when I first ventured out into the cold night air with a friend and my holga. I’m less interested now in shooting at night and long exposures, but trees continue to hold my fascination. I’m trying to develop it into a series, and possibly a show. I’m unsure of this focus though, and wonder if it’s an interesting enough subject to build a full scale artshow around…

I want to ride this bicycle

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I want to ride this bicycle

The above photo was blogged on the front page of Utata today, along with a wonderful write up by Greg Fallis. Greg has been a long time Flickr friend, and I’m always pleased when he stops by my photo stream with a thoughful comment about my work. I am very pleased with his written accompaniment of this photo. It makes me long for a new red bike, a warm sunny day, and a joyride around the seawall.

A good smile starts in the eyes

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Fresh flowers make me happy

Poor neglected photo blog. I just don’t much feel like making use of you these days. Maybe some changes should be made so you’ll be more interesting to me.

There is a group self-portraiture project on flickr called 365 Days, and it is providing me with a bit of inspiration. The Challenge: to take 365 different self-portraits over the course of a year and upload one per day to Flickr. Though not interested in doing such a thing EVERY DAY, I would like to take selfportraits more often than I have been. I’ve always found them to be an interesting challenge to do creatively, and it helps me learn a little bit about myself. I’ve decided to set a goal of taking a selfportrait every week and a half because working on a small project is always a good way to stay inspired. The above shot is the first in the series.